Council closing pothole faults before completion

[pistonheadforum]

Hello,

I've just done what I thought would help out fellow man - log a huge pothole in the road that I seen a number of people either hit, or have to take avoiding action if they actually managed to see it in time.

I've logged it on the app and just received a reply back from the local council basicically saying:

"Ticket closed - this has been passed to an inspector and will be programmed in for repair."

Now this is clearly the council at it - it's not complete it's still there! This must look magical on their statistics - number of tickets opened vs number of tickets closed in a short time. Clearly trebels all round at the next review.

I really want to chase this as I feel this is wrong - it's only closed when the hole has actually been filled. The wording also does not actually commit to repairing the fault as they will likely claim it was fine and did not need repair after all.

Is it me losing the plot? Is this standard council weaseling or is this worth chasing to get them to change the reporting progress?

What do other councils do please?

Many thanks in advance.

[Geffg]

Everything these days is about figures and looking good on paper / computer.
Nobody physically looking and checking jobs are completed and completed correctly. As long as the computer says yes then all good and another pat on the back / bonus for the boss.

[pistonheadforum]

Geffg said:

Everything these days is about figures and looking good on paper / computer.
Nobody physically looking and checking jobs are completed and completed correctly. As long as the computer says yes then all good and another pat on the back / bonus for the boss.

I've become old man yells at cloud?

[vikingaero]

I logged a pothole(s) after witnessing a biker nearly becoming a cropper on a roundabout - you're turning right and hit about 5-6 potholes all grouped together. In a car it's uncomfortable but OK as you have 4 wheels for stability. On a motorbike or pushbike you're screwed.

Guy rang up from the Council saying that he'd closed it as other people had reported it. I challenged this and he didn't like it. Everyone else had reported potholes at 12 o'clock as you look North, I correctly reported it as 3 o'clock as you look North. His justification also for closing it was that the roundabout was due an upgrade in a years time. So I asked for his name, which he gave, and said that if anyone else came off at that location, I'd help them sue the Council and name him for not doing his job properly.

[steveo3002]

been reporting the same stretch of road here for years, never gets fixed

can only think get a name and encourage the local paper to name and shame em , or hope someone from the parish council bursts a tyre and it will get fixed next day

[swisstoni]

I’d dearly like to see details of the type of money that flows between councils and road repair contractors.

I’d guess what may have looked like a cheap easy way to get roads fixed has turned in to a costly nightmare full of ‘extras’.
And now of course, the contractors have got the councils where they want them.

I suppose it would be too much to think that a few adjacent councils could pool their budgets to create their own in-house road fixing squads.

[808 Estate]

swisstoni said:

I’d dearly like to see details of the type of money that flows between councils and road repair contractors.

I suppose it would be too much to think that a few adjacent councils could pool their budgets to create their own in-house road fixing squads.

Like the old days when the council actually had a few tarmac wagons and some blokes that could fix things.

[Tigerj]

If you want to chase it up, just contact them setting out the reasons why you believe they have failed to act appropriately. If that doesn’t work submit a complaint, just be sure to include how it’s caused you personal injustice otherwise it won’t be looked at. The council will have a highways manual find that it will have the details of the potholes it will and will not action.

[pistonheadforum]

Interestingly I contacted them asking why the ticket was closed given that the work was not completed.

I've not heard back from them but magically the pothole has been filled. Clearly chancers that are working the system and need to be chased up every step of the way.

[pistonheadforum]

Tigerj said:

The council will have a highways manual find that it will have the details of the potholes it will and will not action.

Any idea how to get a copy of this manual? Is it publically available?

[Dingu]

pistonheadforum said:

Interestingly I contacted them asking why the ticket was closed given that the work was not completed.

I've not heard back from them but magically the pothole has been filled. Clearly chancers that are working the system and need to be chased up every step of the way.

Or, and this is a radical idea, they had notified the contractor on a separate system who was always going to do it.

You might be happy to waste money having people manually revisiting your ticket and closing it down to bridge the gap in systems so you can feel important. Most people would prefer the money to be spent usefully though.

[pistonheadforum]

Dingu said:

Or, and this is a radical idea, they had notified the contractor on a separate system who was always going to do it.

Logged two months previously and repeatedly by different people since then according to Fix My Street.

Probably all got an immediate ticket close email. Stats are looking good though!

[swisstoni]

Yep. Departmental KPI is just spiffy!

[Dingu]

pistonheadforum said:

Logged two months previously and repeatedly by different people since then according to Fix My Street.

Probably all got an immediate ticket close email. Stats are looking good though!

God forbid them not being able to be at your personal beck and call.
Wonder how many multiples of your current council tax bill you would accept for immediate fixes.

Retired and bored perhaps?

[swisstoni]

He’d like to get a pothole filled in.
It’s not like he’s asking for his own personal bypass or something.

[Dingu]

swisstoni said:

He’d like to get a pothole filled in.
It’s not like he’s asking for his own personal bypass or something.

He should be happy then. It’s filled in.

[Riley Blue]

pistonheadforum said:

Tigerj said:

The council will have a highways manual find that it will have the details of the potholes it will and will not action.

Any idea how to get a copy of this manual? Is it publically available?

My local council (Derbyshire CC) has theirs on their website, see 'related documents' down the page: https://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/transport-roads/high...

[PaulD86]

pistonheadforum said:

Hello,

I've just done what I thought would help out fellow man - log a huge pothole in the road that I seen a number of people either hit, or have to take avoiding action if they actually managed to see it in time.

I've logged it on the app and just received a reply back from the local council basicically saying:

"Ticket closed - this has been passed to an inspector and will be programmed in for repair."

Now this is clearly the council at it - it's not complete it's still there! This must look magical on their statistics - number of tickets opened vs number of tickets closed in a short time. Clearly trebels all round at the next review.

I really want to chase this as I feel this is wrong - it's only closed when the hole has actually been filled. The wording also does not actually commit to repairing the fault as they will likely claim it was fine and did not need repair after all.

Is it me losing the plot? Is this standard council weaseling or is this worth chasing to get them to change the reporting progress?

What do other councils do please?

Many thanks in advance.

Pothole reporting methods vary from council to council. Most (probably all) will have an online portal of some sort where people can log a request for service - this is what you did. You requested a pothole be filled. What happens next is dependant upon the web interface and asset management system that the council are using, as well as internal procedures.

From what you have said it sounds like your LA have a system in place whereby when a report is received, a job is raised for an inspector to attend. This is fairly standard and in most instances is the correct thing to happen. People often think that when they report a pothole, a lorry with tar should be sent immediately - in an ideal world where the public reported sensibly, that may work. In the real world, it does not. While your average PHer will report potholes sensibly, unfortunately many use reporting tools as they don't like the surface of their road, or to report extremely minor damage and wear. Therefore, having an inspector check the pothole is near essential. Some authorities allow pictures to be uploaded, which can help bypass the inspection step, however people tend to then include a close up of the defect which makes it impossible to determine the risk it may pose and accurately risk assess (the code of practice for roads is the Well Managed Highways Infrastructure Oct 2016 if you want to know more about risk based response).

Once inspected, the inspector will raise a job for repair, if appropriate. This should be done with a timescale based upon a risk assessment of the defect. A big part of your complaint seems to be that your ticket was marked as closed. Personally I think communications of this nature aren't a good idea as the public react as you have and then waste their, and the councils time, chasing things. It is, however not uncommon and is usually as the website and asset management system are not the same. What this can mean is that the web system is set to automatically generate a job for the inspector, but isn't then able to interact with the asset management system the inspector uses. And as the web system needs the enquiry closed at some point, the council has set the system to raise the job with the inspector and close the enquiry. It isn't a great way of doing things in my view, but with some systems you are almost forced to. Regardless, it doesn't actually have any bearing on what the council actually does with your enquiry, so while it may be an irritation to get a ticket closed email, it actually doesn't make the slightest difference to anything.

You were notified that the job was passed to an inspector. This sounds like the correct approach. The council should have a timescale for the inspector assessing the pothole. This will likely be in their inspection manual/policy, most of which can be found online, as another poster has indicated.

You follow up to suggest that your report being chased was the only reason the council did anything. It's a popular narrative, but generally also an incorrect one. The council will probably have a default X day period for an inspection to be carried out following a report of a defect. The X may vary depending on the road - for instance, an authority may inspect defects on busy roads within 1 or 2 days, but may allow longer on, say, a residential cul-de-sac as this location is clearly lower risk. Then the inspector will make a judgement regarding how quickly the defect needs to be repairs - this should be made using a risk-based approach (see the code of practice cited earlier). Generally response times will be along the lines of - immediate, where there is imminent risk to life (these are rare), 2 day (with a target of getting the work done asap), 7 or 14 day (where the defect needs attention but it does not need to be immediate) and 28 day (where the defect needs attention but poses little imminent danger). Often people report their pothole and then chase around a week later. Meanwhile the pothole has been assessed as being a 7 or 14 day job so low and behold it gets sorted around the time they chase. Of course, even if you present evidence of this to people, they never believe it as everything with councils must be a conspiracy, but the reality is that it probably isn't.

Now, while I've explained how things should and often do work, some councils are just generally poor. Some, however, are also very good. And the public are often pretty bad at telling which is which. However, from the interaction you describe, it doesn't sound like there has been much of a problem here. You reported something, they sent an inspector and it was ultimately actioned. You may be unhappy at the speed of response, however if you knew how many enquiries your council got as well as what their budget was for inspection staff, you'd probably get an idea why things take time. Roads are massively under-funded. Yes, I'm sure you and everyone else can explain how they could be much more efficient, how you saw council employees at a job and there were too many, they weren't doing enough etc, however the reality is that when budgets are cut, roads are the soft target. Say your cutting schools, NHS etc budget and you wont be re-elected. Roads cuts, well people moan about the state of them, but there isn't a massive outcry.

So, extremely long post short, your council may be useless, however they may also have acted entirely appropriately. From what you've said I think the worst thing they have done is send the auto "ticket closed" email, however this was probably to an extent necessary due to the systems they use. Ideal, no, a problem, also no.

[PaulD86]

Tigerj said:

If you want to chase it up, just contact them setting out the reasons why you believe they have failed to act appropriately. If that doesn’t work submit a complaint, just be sure to include how it’s caused you personal injustice otherwise it won’t be looked at. The council will have a highways manual find that it will have the details of the potholes it will and will not action.

Bad idea. All you will do is waste a lot of staff time and acheive nothing. Sorry, that's unfair, you will acheive something. You'll waste man hours, and therefore money, which could be better spent. But if it makes you happy....

[swisstoni]

PaulD86 said:

Tigerj said:

If you want to chase it up, just contact them setting out the reasons why you believe they have failed to act appropriately. If that doesn’t work submit a complaint, just be sure to include how it’s caused you personal injustice otherwise it won’t be looked at. The council will have a highways manual find that it will have the details of the potholes it will and will not action.

Bad idea. All you will do is waste a lot of staff time and acheive nothing. Sorry, that's unfair, you will acheive something. You'll waste man hours, and therefore money, which could be better spent. But if it makes you happy....

Is sending a private contractor out to fix a pothole while ignoring the 3 next to it money well spent?